Natalie Lye is still battling the pain from her fall at Nowra last week. Picture: Gregg Porteous

Natalie Lye won a $7000 maiden at the South Coast track — then was almost killed.

In a fall after the finish line, the 31-year-old jockey suffered a fractured jaw, a broken elbow, a shocking facial wound that required five-and-a-half hours of micro surgery to reattach the major nerve to her saliva duct and swelling on the brain.

All for $360 — her riding fee and five per cent of the prizemoney.

Right on 3.30pm as Payne was being swamped by the world’s media, a bloodied Lye was sprawled out on the Nowra track before being flown to Royal North Shore hospital.

She suffered the fall when her saddle slipped 20 metres before the finish line and her horse, Miss Danzka, went careering into the outside fence 100 metres past the winning post.

“The specialist said that if this cut was another inch down my face, I wouldn’t have made it off the track,” Lye said, “I’m actually really lucky. It could have been much worse.”

Lye is fulltime trackwork rider, a part-time jockey, a mum and has a fulltime job in nursing.

Six mornings a week she is at Hawkesbury racetrack by 4am to ride work.

Then it’s straight home to get her two children (Dakota 8, Deakon 4) and foster child (Taylor 7) ready for school. And then to work in her fulltime role as a carer for stroke victims and patients with brain injuries.

Lye really is a tough and remarkably courageous young lady who is now faced with the decision on whether to continue with her riding career after such a terrifying accident.

“I’ve had a few people already try to talk me out of going back to race riding,” she says when we catch up for this interview at the Hawkesbury racetrack.

“It’s hard for me to say right now but it’s something I’m going to have to think about in the next couple of months while I’m recovering.

“I don’t ride to make a living. It’s something I just enjoy doing.

“It’s hard particularly on my daughter who doesn’t take kindly to seeing me in hospital like I was. She just sat there crying in hospital and she takes it really hard.”

Natalie Lye is treated by medical staff and comforted by trainer Gabby Englebrecht after her fall at Nowra.Source:Supplied

The irony of this story is that the accident happened within half an hour of Payne’s stirring victory in the Melbourne Cup aboard Prince Of Penzance. The only difference is Payne was riding in a race with first prizemoney of $3.6 million and Lye, $3600.

Lye watched the Melbourne Cup just 15 minutes before her own race on the TV in the jockeys’ room at Nowra.

“I was crying for Michelle,” she said, “You get this huge adrenaline rush and the emotions take over. It was fantastic what she did for women in racing.”

Lye says she agrees with Payne’s comments on chauvinism in the industry and her now infamous line: “I want to say to everyone else, get stuffed, because women can do anything and we can beat the world.”

Lye says: “I think Michelle’s 100 per cent right in everything she said.

“It’s a lot better than it used to be but it’s still very hard to make a mark in the racing industry for females. You’re trying to prove your worth all the time.

“It’s hard and it takes great determination. Girls are just as good as the blokes.

“We don’t get as many chances in the big races so it’s hard to prove it.’’

Not that this story is about a gender debate.

Natalie Lye is unsure whether she will return to race riding. Picture: Gregg PorteousSource:News Limited

It’s more the proof that women are as tough, strong and courageous as their male counterparts in one of the most dangerous sports of them all.

The support from fiancee Dean and the NSW racing industry has been outstanding.

Racing NSW boss Peter V’landys and jockey welfare manager Maurice Logue are checking daily on her progress. The horses’ owner, John Little, visited her in hospital.

The road to a full recovery is a long one. The broken bones will take two months.

She is still getting dizzy spells and the entire right side of her body is heavily bruised.

“You know what … I’m in a shitload of pain but considering how I was a week ago, I think I’ve done well,” she says, “it could have been worse.

“I remember thinking when it happened … we’ve got to stop all the blood. I remember whispering to Gabby (Englebrecht) the trainer, I think I’m gone. I actually used the F-word. I really thought I was screwed with blood coming out of my ears.

“Luckily it was from the cut on my face but I didn’t know at the time.

“Things happen in this sport. You step out there knowing it can be dangerous and anything can happen. That’s racing.”

Michelle Payne’s Melbourne Cup win brought Natalie Lye to tears.Source:Getty Images